My Eyes Are Up Here

by Laura Zimmermann

  “Books? Did you give her BOOKS?”

  She turns to face me now. “It’s a long flight.”

  “You gave her my books?”

  “With a layover.”

  “The child has two iPads: one for games, one for movies.”

  “Mel’s been telling me that Quinlan has been so quiet lately, just moping in her room, and I said you’ve always been like that, too, I mean not moping but alone in your room—”

  “I LIKE TO READ. That’s why I’m in my room. And that’s why I like my BOOKS.”

  “We figured Quinlan would be more willing to read something if we said it was from you.”

  “What did you give her?”

  “I don’t know. Where the Mountain Meets the Moon, Superfudge, the one with the mouse family and the research lab. I didn’t know it was going to be such a big deal. They’re children’s books, Greer.” I am glaring at her. “You read them ages ago.”

  “That isn’t the point. They weren’t yours to give.”

  “Greer, that little girl is really struggling. She needs somebody looking out for her.”

  “Why are you always looking out for other people? Why can’t you look out for me?” I ask, even though I suspect it’s because I can’t leave her five stars on the re-lo agent review page.

  Mom huffs. “Are you really that upset about a couple of old books?”

  Yes.

  No.

  I’m disappointed that Jackson didn’t find some excuse to come with his mom to our house, even if I was sleeping. I’m stressed out that I keep changing my mind about what I want so I can’t figure out if I blew it or I saved myself, but it feels more like I blew it. I’m worried that after break we’ll either start all over from the beginning—or that we won’t. And that Maggie will get back from the Cleave family Christmas in Iowa and spend the rest of the break helping Rafa write a musical. And now I’m upset that Maude, Mavis, and I will be alone without my chewed-up old Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH and a mother whose retinas are too sun damaged to drive to the library.

  “They were my books,” I say, without conviction.

  When I come upstairs, Tyler is taking a selfie with Mom’s sunglasses and my Stabilizer on, and he is eating my waffles.

  CHAPTER 51

  Dad and Tyler and I always pick a movie series to watch all the way through over break. Last year we watched all the Harry Potters. This year we were going to do a Marvel ultramarathon, but Mom interfered and said Ty was still too young for Deadpool, so we switched to Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit. Dad tried to talk us into a Top Ten Classics from the Nineties list but Ty and I revolted.

  We watched two Hobbits yesterday and the third tonight. It’s too late to start LOTR, so we’re just vegging in front of the TV, Ty perched in the giant Lovesac beanbag we got for Christmas, me and Dad on opposite ends of the couch.

  Ty flips the channel to a late-night talk show. The guest is an actress from a new action movie. They show a clip, just a minute of action, in which she is wearing what looks like a shiny black wetsuit, but with the front zipped down to show several inches of bulging cleavage. Her breasts don’t move a bit when she’s knocking out bad guys with roundhouse kicks, which is biologically impossible. The clip ends when she smothers the last villain in her chest while she breaks his neck in her arms.

  The audience goes wild. I think they think this is empowering. They think this is what it looks like to be a badass woman.

  “Congratulations on the movie! I heard it was a big opening weekend,” chimes the host.

  There’s an older comic, who must have been the first guest, on the opposite side of the actress and he pipes in, “Real big. I bet it was huge.”

  The actress fans eyelashes that are like tarantulas and laughs along, like she’s flattered by the attention, even if the attention is for her boobs. Is she shrinking inside, wishing she’d worn a big sweatshirt to this interview so they’d have to talk about the movie or the hundreds of hours of training she must have done instead of her body?

  “We can, ah, watch something else,” says my dad.

  The comic butts in. “Lemme ask you something. Did you shoot that scene in a lot of takes? Was that guy you killed, like, ‘Ah, can we try that again?’”

  “Put on Food Network, Ty,” says Dad. Ty’s nestled in the beanbag, scrolling through his phone, oblivious.

  I look for a sign that the actress has had enough. But no, it’s different for her. She read the script. She knew what she was there for. She might have even paid a doctor to make sure her body would always be the center of attention. Judging by how perky and happy her breasts look peering over the top of her dress, they are not made of the same stuff as mine.

  They put up some pictures of her from other films and award shows. There’s not a single one where she’s not wearing something low cut or tight. There’s even a promo picture from a film where she’s wearing a fur hat and a tank top. Where is a movie supposed to take place if it’s cold enough for a fur hat but warm enough for a tank top? I can tell from the live show that her biceps are cut like a boxer’s, but they don’t even feature in the promo shot.

  “And here you are last year with your fiancé at the MTV Awards,” says the host. There’s a picture of her in a dress that looks like her breasts got caught in a sparkly fishing net. Her fiancé is wearing a plain black suit.

  “Are you sure that wasn’t at the Golden Globes?” pipes in the comic. The host indulges him with an eye roll, as if to say “Whaddya gonna do? These old guys don’t know any better.”

  Maybe she figured it was the only way she was going to get into movies. But this can’t really be what she wants, can it? Maybe it’s close enough to what she wanted? To sit there and smile while some ape makes obvious boob jokes? And what if it is? What if this is everything she’s ever dreamed of? What if she was considering majoring in physics and then decided, “You know what? I could split an atom, but that seems like a lot of work”? What does that do to the rest of us? But really, why should that be her responsibility? I look over at my little brother absently letting the commentary on the TV wash into him.

  “Let’s see what else is on,” interrupts my dad. “Ty, can you find something else?” Tyler’s too zoned out, too comfortable, to notice. “Tyler! Ty! Change the channel.”

  My dad, on the other hand, looks like he is going to be sick. We’re watching Booby McBoobface being interviewed, and he is desperate to change the channel. I can tell he’s trying not to look at me, and it dawns on me: He’s embarrassed. He’s embarrassed to be watching a guy roast a woman because of her big breasts because I’m here. Because he is imagining some guy talking about me like that. About my big breasts.

  Now I’m embarrassed, too. And suddenly so, so tired.

  “I’m going to bed.” I leave the boys to the TV.

  CHAPTER 52

  “No, no. That’s not true at all.”

  Mom and I are at a coffee shop (not one named for an astronomer; one named for whatever a Starbuck is), having just returned everything my grandparents sent for Hanukkah. A couple of tweeny girls at a nearby table are wearing elaborate outfits, including layers of necklaces and chunky-heeled boots, like what you imagine a kid imagines a supermodel would wear on her day off. I have just claimed that I must have been born without the gene that makes you interested in clothes, and Mom is disagreeing.

  “What do you mean?”

  “You used to dress up just like all the other little girls we knew. Or most of them, anyway. Sometimes you’d change three times a day.”

  This doesn’t sound like me. I’d prefer to change no times a day. If I could just sleep in a sweatshirt and yoga pants, I’d be dressed for tomorrow, too. “When was that?”

  “Up until you were four. Four and a half, actually.” She is fidgeting with her new sunglasses, folding and unfolding the bows. Once Tyler told her she look
ed like an old lady, she ditched the bedazzled ones.

  “What happened?”

  “We went to the mall. You had picked out your own outfit, of course. It was like a Greer Greatest Hits day. The top was from a Disney Sleeping Beauty Halloween costume. It was this cheap, knock-off satin, bubblegum pink. It Velcroed in the back, but the Velcro was ‘scratchedy’ so you made me cut out the Velcro and safety pin the back.”

  “You let me wear that in public?”

  “Let you? I’m telling you, you were very particular about your clothes.”

  “What kind of pants go with a Sleeping Beauty costume top?”

  “No, no. Not pants. We were going to the mall. But not the skirt from the costume, either. You had this skirt from Hanna Andersson. Maybe my favorite thing you ever wore. It’s in tons of pictures.”

  “The bright one with all the flowers?”

  “That’s it. It was orange and red and blue, with this Scandinavian floral pattern, and big balloon ruffles? I had to pretend not to like it or you wouldn’t have worn it. We used to say it had good twirlability.”

  “Did it look pretty good with the pink satin princess costume?”

  “You sure thought so. But you’d had it since you were two, so it barely covered your butt. I told you if you didn’t wear something under it everyone would see your undies. You wouldn’t have cared, except that it was a Friday, and your Friday undies were in the wash and you had to wear Tuesday. You thought if people saw your undies, they’d think you couldn’t read.”

  “I was worried that people would think I couldn’t read my own underwear?” That sounds exactly like me. “I guess that would be kind of embarrassing. So I wore tights?”

  “Flamingo bikini bottoms.”

  “Of course. What kind of shoes did I wear? Stilettos? Moon boots?” I still can’t believe she’s not making this up, because it seems so unlike me, but now that I think of it, in all the preschool pictures I’m pretty fancy. I just assumed it was Mom’s fault.

  “Just tennies. You’ve always been very practical about shoes.” I look down at my feet and laugh. I’ve permanently taken over Mom’s Keens because they are so comfortable and worn in. She is not making this up.

  “So, what happened? Why was that the last time I dressed up for the mall? Did I see myself in a mirror?”

  “No, actually.” Mom has been having fun with this story, especially, I think, since I have been, too. We don’t do this a lot, where just the two of us talk about something that’s not logistics, or one of us asking the other for something, or one of us disappointed/angry/annoyed at the other. There’s been a lot of family time this break, but today is nice. She changes here, though, gets more serious. She smiles to herself, remembering, and I can’t tell if it’s a happy smile or a sad smile. “We went to the Lego store. They used to have these big barrels of Legos out and a ramp set up, so you could build a car and race it.”

  “I remember that! And then you’d shower me in Purell!”

  “It was you and a bunch of little boys, building cars. The boys would make these massive things with extra wheels and windows and guns and ladders and all kinds of things sticking out of them. And then they’d crash to bits at the bottom and they’d rebuild them even dumber. Yours was streamlined. After every run, you’d make adjustments: add weight, reduce drag, bigger wheels, rebalance. I mean, you didn’t use those words. You just figured it out. And pretty soon, your car—actually, I think you called it a rocket car—no wait, a rocket boat—yours was beating everything. Even when the other kids tried to cheat—they’d give theirs a shove or blow on it or try to put something in the way on your track—yours beat them all, and it stayed together.”

  I’m proud of little Greer.

  “And then the clerk from the store came over and watched some of the races and saw that your rocket boat was beating everything else by a mile. And you know what they said?” Mom looks like she’s turning something over in her mouth. Something she wishes she could spit out. This memory has gone from fun to something else.

  “What?”

  “‘Aren’t you a pretty princess? Did you pick out your outfit yourself?’”

  This question sits between us for a while, and for once Kathryn Walsh resists the urge to lecture me on what exactly it means, because we both know very well what it means. It means I could have built a working space station, but all anyone else saw was pink satin and a twirly skirt.

  Finally, I say, “Did you tell him off?”

  “Who?”

  “The guy from the store?”

  She looks up at the ceiling, then down at her hands. “It was a woman, Greer.” Very quietly, like it hurts her to say this, she adds, “And the only thing I said was, ‘Say thank you, sweetie.’”

  We are both quiet again for a long minute. “That’s when I stopped dressing up?”

  “You stopped dressing up.”

  I think about this and wonder about the choice. The choice between flamingo bikini bottoms and Lego race cars. The choice between being adored and being respected. Between being a princess and being the president. But if that’s the choice, there’s really no contest, is there? “Better that than stop building rocket boats.”

  Mom laughs and pushes a piece of hair behind my ear. She doesn’t even try to take credit or tell me that all my engineering abilities come from her. “I’m sorry if it feels like you have to choose, Greer. I want you to be able to do both.”

  CHAPTER 53

  Mom drives me to school 98 percent of the time, which is why I’m on time 98 percent of the time. It’s the first day back from break and by some annoying twist of fate, Dad doesn’t have an early meeting to show up late for.

  So today I’m in Eric Walsh’s 2 percent club: in other words, late.

  I’m anxious to find out if Jackson is still going to wait for me before school, or if ten days in the Canadian Rockies brought him to his senses. I heard from him a couple times in the first two days, then Quin dropped his phone off a chairlift. I know this because Quin messaged from her iPad—that and about a thousand selfies with reindeer antler or Santa hat filters.

  Dad jabbers the whole ride there, showing no sign of rushing, even though we left fifteen minutes later than Mom and I do, and he’s taking the rookie route that has two extra stoplights and a crosswalk choked with elementary students. I guess when you are an executive at your company, you’re never actually late. Things just start when you get there.

  I am not an executive at school, and school will start with or without me. The minute-warning bell rings while I’m still getting out of the car, which means I can almost make it to math if I sprint the whole way, don’t stop at my locker, and turn back time by four minutes, though if that were possible I’d go back ten and say hi to Jackson.

  “Thanks for the ride.” I don’t mean it.

  “Any big tests or anything today?” He’s still trying to make conversation with me.

  “They don’t usually give tests when you’ve been out for ten days.” I kick the door shut behind me.

  I hear the window scrolling down as I scuffle toward school. “Have a good day, G-dub! Love you, kiddo!”

  I wave behind me. Nice guy, Eric Walsh, but really needs to work on time management.

  The math/German/who-cares-what-else hall is empty, like I knew it would be but hoped it wouldn’t be. Ms. T eyes me sliding in front of Omar and Kurtis. I give an apologetic smile and she frowns, but she doesn’t send me to the office for a late pass.

  They’ve already started on the homework when my phone chirps. I fumble it out of my bag as Ms. T exhales loudly and glares at me. I switch off the ringer, but not before I notice that it’s a message from Jackson.

  Ms. T asks Asher to go over the first problem with the class. She stands over his shoulder while he reads.

  Where are you? Sick today?

  Just late.


  You?! Late?!!!

  Dad’s fault. I thought your phone had a ski accident?

  Got a new one last night. Plus they bought Q her own. [eye-rolling emoji]

  [surprise-face emoji]

  Wait for me after class?

  “After”? Really? We never talk after. Maybe he brought me something from Canada.

  “Who can do number two?” asks Ms. Tanner.

  Kyle Tuck and the others laugh. Immature, yes, but come on, Ms. Tanner. You should know better.

  “Seems like we’ve got a volunteer. Okay, Kyle, let’s see your number two.”

  Kyle’s friends are laughing so hard they can’t speak.

  “Do you want to tell us all what’s so funny, Kyle?”

  The giggles spread out from Kyle like ripples in a pond.

  “Did you do number two? You had all of break to get it done.”

  Everyone loses it, except Asher and Anitha, who are serious about math, serious about homework, and probably serious about their number twos.

  “Excuse me,” pipes up Omar. “I think Kyle is having a hard time with number two.”

  It sends everybody over the edge, even Kyle. I’m proud of Omar.

  Just for a sec?

  If Jackson brought me something, I hope it’s those chocolate-covered peanuts that say Moose Poop on the package.

  I send back a thumbs-up emoji. And a smiley poo for good measure.

  CHAPTER 54

  “Are you going to eat that egg?”

  “Don’t you have a lunch? Do you need a dollar for a granola bar or something?”

  Maggie scares away Carlisle Patone, who has been eyeing my egg. Maggie has always intimidated people, but after the play she colored over the Seven Brides neon with brown, and now her hair is kind of army green. It gives her a definite take-no-prisoners vibe.